I almost didn’t do this - I took Niels’ advice this past weekend and unplugged a bit. It hasn’t been a fun week in the world. It hasn’t been a fun month.

But then this happened:

BYE week claims a victim or two every year, and “Offensive” “Coordinator” “Brian” Ferentz got got. Of course, they didn’t exactly call it that.

So as I go through the Five Stages Of Grief that the subject of my Diary series is officially a Lame Hawkeye, no long intro this week. I instead want to sincerely thank you for reading. When I started this, I did so out of a place of sheer morbid curiosity after discovering how little the Iowa offense mattered in 2022.

I had no idea that anyone else would be interested. But you’ve been reading, and the reviews are in!

• “I find this diary and the football described in it to be, quite frankly, disgusting. Yet I can't help but read it.” - LeCheezus
• “No one should have to pay attention to Iowa.” - GoGergYourself
• “I'll keep reading throughout the season. Does that make me a bad person?” - trueblueintexas
• “It's a train wreck of futility, and I can't look away.” - AlbanyBlue
• “I feel bad that you had to do it, but I'm glad you did.” - Blue@LSU
• “… it looks like they are improving every week. And we wouldn't want to give the false impression that they are improving, now, would we?” - JHumich
• “Why are you doing this?” - my wife
• “I have no idea.” - me
• “Tantalizing…” - The New York Times

Mail Call

Anyone remember Mail Call with R. Lee Ermey, back when History Channel was interested in actual history?

With apologies to the MGoStaff, I’m going to adopt Bolded Alter Ego for this. Except that Bolded Alter Ego is really you, the readers, because I’ve been asked about a lot of this stuff over the past couple of months.

Did you expect for “Offensive” “Coordinator” “Brian” Ferentz to be fired?

No. He believed he was necessary and he was.

I thought the better question was “will Brian Ferentz get shot into the sun?” or “will Brian Ferentz be Admiral Ozzel’d by the Darth Vader that lurks inside Kirk Ferentz?” or “ will Brian Ferentz slink off into darkness, forgetting the taste of bread, the sound of trees and the softness of the wind, even forgetting his own name?”

I don’t know what’s next for him, but if Ferentz the Younger disappears, they need to check the basement dungeon of DC Phil Parker first. Parker has some scores (pun intended) to settle.

Real talk, are we going to see Iowa in the B1G Championship?

Mayyybe - losing to Minnesota was unexpected and re-opened the door in the B1G West. The B1G East is still technically wide open too, even with Penn State losing to Ohio State in a very Iowa Football game. Smarter folks than I have been running those scenarios.

Iowa or Wisconsin (Iowa has a head-to-head win, remember) will likely be the opponent, which means that 1) you can pencil in another B1G East victory, and 2) IF it’s the Hawkeyes…Iowa is likely to lose their #1 SP+ defense at the end of the season. Sadface.

Anyone remember the year that the Bears made the Super Bowl with Rex “Fuck it I’m Chucking it Deep” Grossman? This would be like that but somehow even MORE amazing because if there’s one thing that “we’re gonna modernize the offense this year I swear” Iowa does not do, it’s chuck it deep.

Strive for 325: on track or off track?

156 points through 8 games. Oof. Ooooof. There's 2 teams WORSE than that in the Big Ten. Oooooooooooof.

Thorin Oakenshield’s band of dwarves was closer to the trail when they traveled through Mirkwood than Iowa is to their path toward 325 points for the season. And we all know how THAT turned out. I don’t know what the metaphorical Spiders of Mirkwood are in the context of the football season, but I’m pretty sure there’s no Football Bilbo With The One Ring that’s gonna save the day here.

“Deacon Hill” would be a good hobbit name.

Look at that trend. I’m gonna call it: The Feren-doza Line is hereby set at 19.5, and any OC from now on that keeps their job after a season’s PPG of 17.7 will win the coveted BRIAN FERENTZ MEMORIAL TROPHY OF MEDIOCRITY. The only teams in the B1G scoring less than Iowa are Indiana (already fired their OC) and Michigan State (likely to fire their OC as they clear house this offseason).

156 points through 8 games means that…

• Iowa is 30 (really 29.7) points below where they ‘should’ be right now. That’s a deficit of 15 SAFETIES HOW WILL THEY MAKE UP THAT MANY SAFETIES?
  • Or, if you don’t think they’ll be in Indy, the deficit is 44 POINTS THAT’S 22 SAFETIES OMG.
• They have to score 169 points through the final 6 games. That’s 28.17 points per game.
  • Or, if you don’t think they’ll be in Indy, they’ll need to score 33.8 points per game. 17 safeties PER GAME.

 

Doable?

No. Almost definitely no. Remember that Iowa put up 20 points on Purdue when Purdue was dead average in SP+ defense (66th). Here’s Iowa’s upcoming opponents:

• Northwestern (SP+ 54th defense) - maybe
• Rutgers (SP+ 29th defense) - no
• Illinois (SP+ 34th defense) - no
• Nebraska (SP+ 15th defense!!!) - no
• B1G Championship
  • Michigan (SP+ 2nd defense) - lol no
  • Ohio State (SP+ 3rd defense) - lol no
  • Penn State (SP+ 4th defense) - lol no
• Bowl Game
  • The very worst SP+ defensive team that’s currently bowl-eligible is Georgia Southern at 114th. Soooooo…. here’s hoping…?

Will Iowa’s offense improve next season?

I mean, they kind of HAVE to, right? Getting older, wiser, healthier, and less Brian Ferentz’d…they’ll be better. We’ll see if Old Frenemy Cade “hasn’t played in a month and a half and STILL the Hawkeyes’ top passer” McNamara sticks around. He says he will, but idk man. Erick “Gonna get robot legs it’s a risky procedure but it’d be worth it” All is presumably out of eligibility?

I don’t expect Iowa’s offense to be good while Kirk “can’t be bothered” Ferentz is head coach.

Enough about Iowa. Has Michigan’s defense ever been as good as Iowa’s is now?

Easily.

But, like, maybe only counting stats after 1970?

Oh yeah. Not even a challenge over the past 50 years. Since 1970, Michigan’s SP+ rating on defense has been equal to or better than what Iowa is currently rocking 13 times.

The old-timers on the board can tell us about the defensive awesomeness in the 70s, but after that era, 1997 passes both the eye test and the stats test as the best defense in recent memory. If you want the closest comp to where Iowa is now, Michigan’s 2006 and 2017 defenses were the barest bit worse than Iowa’s 2023 campaign so far.

In the Big Ten, the Top 10 defenses since 1970 go: Michigan, Michigan, Michigan, Ohio State, Ohio State, Michigan, Michigan, Michigan, Ohio State, Iowa (2019). The following 6 places are all either Michigan or OSU as well.

Iowa has previously had better defenses than they currently do as well: 5 times just since 2000!

Has Michigan’s offense ever been as bad as Iowa’s is now?

Not so much. You have to go back to 1963 before you find a worse SP+ offense at Michigan. Jim Harbaugh was born in 1963.

When was the last time that Iowa’s offense was good?

Is Michigan’s offense right now “good”? Iowa was around that level in 2002. A little below that in 2005. And 2020! Wasn’t expecting that last one.

When was the last time that Iowa’s offense was better than Michigan’s?

No surprises here: 2014, 2009, and 2008. They snuck by us in 2002 and 2001 also.

Why not use other stats, like yards per game or points per game, etc., to compare Iowa to history?

That’s a good question. I think it mostly comes down to: SP+ has a huge historical dataset, purports to measure process instead of results, and adjusts for stuff like strength of opponents.

The one retroactive stat that I like is Points Per Drive, because it normalizes data across offensive and defensive strategies and doesn’t count FCS opponents nor garbage time. I don’t like to use it mid-season due to sample size concerns, but after the season I’ll definitely do a comparison. That dataset only goes back to 2007, but we can work with that.

I’m a little leery of simple counting stats for Run-It-Up-Against-UMass, 2010 Michigan-Illinois, and 2013 Michigan-Northwestern reasons. They’re just not indicative of a good or bad team in the same way.

What about FEI?

Ok, FEI is pretty good. But it isn’t telling too much of a different story: FEI ranks Iowa’s offense around the 120th mark, but the figures that aren’t opponent-adjusted rank even lower than SP+.

FWIW, FEI thinks that Indiana’s offense is worse that Iowa’s on a per-drive basis. But I like Indiana’s offense better than Iowa’s, so I’m gonna go ahead and disagree.

Do you like Indiana better because they throw to their RBs a lot?

Yes.

Is that the ONLY reason?

Yes. Indiana’s offense is terrible.

 

I’ve made this distinction before: Iowa is neither history-making bad on offense nor history-making good on defense. What they are is historically mismatched. And even that wouldn’t be terribly interesting if they weren’t also successful.

Of the “Top 5 Most Mismatched Offenses and Defenses in the History of Football”, none won more than 7 games. Iowa, currently tied for 6th in those standings, will probably win 10. Incredible.